Thread: Breathless

The city, God knows which one, was asleep.

Those destined to live in a shadow of ignorance were well within the realms of un-reality, dreaming sweet lies to themselves. Other's hovered in-front of screens that stole both their body and mind, caressing them in their blind light. Some purred sounds of pleasure and lust as pairs, sometimes litters of them, kissed at the flesh of others, holding the very sensation of pleasure close to their bodies. The sweet children of the dark were curled up by the fire of their own social Armageddon.

The streets through which the man stumbled where litter filled, the waste of the animals was the fuel of his misanthropic flame. His cold breath escaped the air turning into steam as it broke free of his maw.

"Is this what this World has come to?" the man asked, his voice gruff with a pain only brought about by a putrid existence as one toiled through life. The man was in a leather duster, tanned dirt brown by an age of use. One could almost make out the jeans and T-shirt engulfed in the duster's shadows and on-top his head was a flat hat with a wide rim, shadowing his face, pronouncing his unshaven scruff.

The howling wind answered him with a mournful cry that scraped at the city. Sensing the turmoil, the cities dog's barked at the sky, begging for a postponing of the inevitable.

The man, wallowing in the prospect of destruction simply laughed.

He laughed a gut wrenching, hysterical laugh that boasted perfectly calm and objective madness. It painted the picture of unmistakable insanity that found that which tore away from an observant soul satisfying. He enjoyed the death and destruction that loomed over the world.


He crooked his head to the sky, revealing a sea blue eye, bloodshot and tortured. It was a shadow of physical turmoil and emotional destruction in those eyes, like a living creature circling its cage itching to pounce at those peering at it through the barrier. A tear, burning with a blood lust that needed to see suffering fell from his eye. It slithered down his cheek with the grace of a hungry snake and dripped from his chin.

It froze mid-fall, struck dead by the vehement frost that now clutched the world.

The epic structures of glass, brick, steel and glass were now coated in frost. Frozen over by a hellish gleam that mocked the world of the living with a deathly bellow that erupted from the sky and crashed down onto the world in a spectacular frenzy of light and fire, the city erupted into a chaos.


Individuals leapt from the structures in a rain of glass and blood, only to splatter onto the pavement below, hordes of people, both young and old, children and adults, spilled onto the street from the mouths of these humongous structures, shoving each other aside and erupting in a unrelenting brawl on the streets, a savage hunger burning in their eyes. Others were succumb to an insurmountable lust and groped at the nearest body, may it be male or female, young or old, living or dead, or somewhere in-between it all and howled in a steam of agonizing lust.

The man, blue eyes piercing the night, smiled a painful smirk. His snow-white teeth gleamed in earnest. His laugh pierced the world in malevolence.

He laughed, and he laughed hard. He laughed as people died around him, he laughed as the world bellowed in ache, he laughed as society committed suicide.

And then he cried.

The blue eyes were now brown and tortured, though now not with a life of peril, but instead with a realization of his monstrosity.

The tears fell, shining with a spark of life in each one as they fell from his face. As they splashed down, a thrum of light resonated from the tear, shining and crackling with the very essence of life. With a ripple of will, the light hovered over the world, resounding with warmth of compassion.

Suddenly, as if by a flip of a switch, chaos ceased. Though now a bittersweet realization reigned. Those tangled with flesh recoiled in horror at their deeds, some mourned their death of close ones who now lay in a sea of blood and glass, others nursed wounds. Though, all cried.

The man now smiled in happiness, free from the chains of insanity. I was freed.

I stood there, amidst the crowd of people, all gathered around in a circle, thanking me.

As the tears fell around me nature awoke.

Vines, trees, shrubs, flowers, fruit, vegetables, grass, all of them were born into the world. The structures crumbled and were conquered by the lush foliage.

The clouds were pierced above by a sword of light… then another… then another and now the world was alight again with life.

The shrouds that people wore were burned, the tears dried, and their pale flesh now gleamed with color.

I, however, still stood there, drowned in mortal sin.

I felt as my hand drifted to my coat pocket and fished out a knife. The knife found its way to my neck, and severed my existence.

Those whom thanked me not moments ago, simply… walked away.

I was forgotten, left to rot in the reborn world…

Then I awoke, breathless, with my back to an ancient tree.

My head turned down as I cried tears of fear and sadness of the prospect of losing the only thing I hold dear.

Though, still reveling in tears an instinct shook my head to peer at the valley where I stay.

Grass, lush and full of life swayed in a cool wind, blessing the mercy of the world in which they resided.

A single butterfly, wings as white as snow, drifted my way and perched itself on my out-stretched hand.

My face flicked into a smile as it did, tears evaporated into the air. “Ah, little one, how I marvel at your beauty and your world, we won’t allow for it to fall, shall we?”

“No, we won’t, it is too precious to lose,” it lied.

You open this brief scene with very dismal imagery and dark ponderings but I found my eye drifting after the first paragraph. This piece is a bit wordy for my liking and there are some areas where cliche seems to rule your descriptions. This can be part of the journey of finding your own voice but I would [ ] lines or descriptions that are, or seem, cliche, for later review.

I also felt a lot of this piece was telling me rather than showing me the realities of this character's perspective. And the wordy, cerebral quality made it difficult to read rather than flow like poetry. Adjectives should be used as spices to the concrete quality of your writing. Here I found it overpowering. Here are some lines I found especially distracting/detracting:

Those destined to live in a shadow of ignorance were well within the realms of un-reality, dreaming sweet lies to themselves. Other's hovered in-front of screens that stole both their body and mind, caressing them in their blind light. Some purred sounds of pleasure and lust as pairs, sometimes litters of them, kissed at the flesh of others, holding the very sensation of pleasure close to their bodies. The sweet children of the dark were curled up by the fire of their own social Armageddon.

This entire paragraph felt too much and I had to read it closely to understand its meaning.

His snow-white teeth gleamed in earnest. His laugh pierced the world in malevolence.

You use the snow metaphor twice in a short period of time. This is a heavily used cliche that I would suggest avoiding.

More than wordy description, the lacking in context made it difficult to gauge whether this behavior was appropriate or understandable. Lacking character motivation, this piece hangs heavy without definition.

Keep writing and good luck!

My hopes were brought up by the first line, but quite effectively dashed.

Thank you for the objective view of it, I've chalked it up for experience and will definitely attempt tp learn from it.

As you probably know, its very hard to thank somebody for trashing your work, but one must learn to lick his wounds and keep moving, right if you would forgive the metaphor.

Thank you. I will work harder to perfect it.

Forgive the mediocrity, this was the result of me writing down a dream (or at least the scant details I remember) on a piece of paper rather quickly before I forgot the dream entirely.

Upon finishing it, I found it share-able, though I suppose I was proven wrong, thank you again for your critique, I thirst for the input of others.

Oh dear, Neutrality, please don't view this as me trashing your work. I think that elements of description are very important and it is easier to scale back excess than it is to add it in (at least in my opinion.) I feel for you because this was the exact same kind of writing I was doing when I started and it took straight-forward and sometimes touch criticism to really understand and begin to fine tune what is too much versus too little. I would suggest, rather than scrapping it to the depths of your trash can, use this as an exercise to see what this same piece would look like if you went through and removed some of the description and tightened up sentences. Rather than strip it of creativity, challenge yourself and your creative mind to take the lines such as "white as snow" and find new, innovative ways to say the same thing. Only through careful scrutiny can we really learn and begin to change our heavy-handed descriptions.

I say this because I know how it feels to be discouraged and there is no reason to be. I have the utmost respect for those working the craft because it's not a science and takes a willingness to risk one's ego and self at the whim of other's preferences. You WILL improve through revision, criticism, and praise. Keep at it and feel free to repost when you've had a chance to look it over

Cheers,
Lindsay

Thank you for responding Hopeful, it has lightened my mood considerably.

I will definitely take your advice and revise this over-spiced scene. Thank you very much for input once again.

-Blake

I just wanted to jump in here because I really liked your piece. I have to agree with Hopeful on the cliche thing, but I do it all the time too. It's just one of those things that's hard to spot when you're writing it because it feels so natural most of the time. But outside of cliches I think you have a really beautiful style. For what it's worth, I actually really liked the first paragraph. And I especially liked the whole second half when you switch to first person. I think it feels more authentic in first person for whatever reason. But again, I think your instinctive style is gorgeous.

I guess my suggestion would be to focus a bit more on subtlety. While your writing style is really wonderful and shows a lot of natural talent, I think thematically the piece is a little blunt. I like the principal themes of the decay of society and wrestling with the state of the world. I think you need to rework it so it's not so in your face. I guess I like writing that sneaks up on you a bit, where the point is a little more hidden. I think there is great potential for this, especially with your style of writing. Perhaps changing the narrative style somehow, maybe making it more of a traditional narrative structure with your own twist. Sorry I'm not being more specific, I'm having a hard time articulating exactly what changes would be best because I think there is a lot of good stuff here to preserve.

Just my humble opinion, take it or leave it. Ultimately I think it shows a lot of talent and I'd love to read more from you in the future.

Thank you very much for the kind (hopefully honest) words.

My style, as told by mentors, friends and of course you guys is like a hammer, if you would forgive the analogy, sometimes it hits the nail on the head, on others, it misses the mark almost entirely.

I have trouble writing short pieces like this as I always run out of time and can't put as much detail in it as I would like to, nor do I feel like investing time in it after I've finished aside from spelling and grammar.

I'll pin this one up on my to-do list, but until then I'll retreat to my work-shop and make some more pieces.

Thank you both for the critique, keep em coming guys!